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Thursday, October 07, 2010

Increase Poverty not a good look for Obama

This week, Census figures will be released and it may be very bad news for President Barack Obama and his administration. The number of people in the U.S. who are in living in poverty is growing and approaching record levels not observed since the 1960s.

Reports from six demographers who track poverty trends expect increases in the range of between 14 and 15 percent.

If the estimates are accurate, this would mean that 1 out of 7 or more than 45 million people were poor last year in America. This would be the largest number since the government started tracking poverty figures in 1959. Prior to this, 1980 showed the biggest increase when the rate jumped 1.3 percentage points to 13 percent during the energy crisis.

Among the 18-64 working-age population, the demographers expect the rate to rise beyond 12.4 percent, up from 11.7 percent. That would make it the highest since at least 1965, when another Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, launched the war on poverty that expanded the federal government's role in social welfare programs from education to health care.

This is particularly troubling for African Americans, since we disproportionately are represented with respect to poverty and unemployment. This is also so true for children since experts anticipate child poverty rates to increase to more than 20 percent.

If these projections are accurate, Republicans, although they have not stated any specific policies to deal with the economy, will have ammunition to continue their attacks against Democrats and President Obama citing a higher poverty rate as evidence of their failed economic policy, although these poverty increases started under President Bush.

Regardless of the political arguments, something needs to be done or else poverty rates will continue to rise and even worse, will start to creep up to middle-class working and unemployed families. Unfortunately, neither party is dealing with answering the question of what can be done to assist families in dire economic need. The all-time high was 22.4 percent in 1959, the first year the government began tracking poverty. As of 2008, the poverty level stood at $22,025 for a family of four.